by JAY WATTS III

This past week saw Momus—eye-patched electronic musician, globetrotter, omnipresent Internet personality and son of a former Concordia prof—take on the case of Mickey Borchardt, on his Clickopera blog (http://imomus.livejournal.com/186136.html).

Borchardt, a 21-year-old UNC student, has become one of the first to win the title of collaborator in what Pitchfork is dubbing the “new Witch Trials” (a tad too much hyperbole), after being charged by the FBI for participating in online music piracy. Mr. Borchardt, now featured in an RIAA video to be shown to college freshmen detailing the perils of swapping music online, has written a cautionary op-ed column in the L.A. Times (which reads like the essay I wrote in Grade 8 after getting caught with my pockets full of comics and chocolate bars at the 7-Eleven), and pleaded guilty in March. He’s currently awaiting sentencing.Momus articulates an intriguing response to piracy, from an artist’s perspective. He offers that what he may lose monetarily from piracy, he may gain in other, less tangible ways—connecting to the “peer” of the Peer-to-Peer equation by, say, having sex with them, becoming friends, being asked to speak on panels, working on projects together and so forth. And boldly, showing that he’s earned his eye-patch as a pirate, he offers up a link to a directory where users can download the new Stereolab album, as “Stereolab have been coasting a while,” essentially “releasing the same record.”

Former Montreal resident David Barclay—who as frontman for mixtape-pop trio the Diskettes won the hearts, minds and undergarments of bespectacled ladies—recently ran off to swim with the dolphins in San Diego. But he keeps us abreast of the contents of his record collection by contributing to MP3 blog Popsheep (www.popsheep.com), generally offering up delights in the realm of late-’60s baroque pop that run from fey to feyer. A recent post includes songs from his high-school heroes, the Nardwuar-fronted Evaporators, and mine, Winnipeg pop-punkers the Bonaduces. Nerds.

COME AND GET ME, COPPERS! goldkicks@gmail.com

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